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NEWSLETTER

Dickens at Christmas | Charles Dickens | Reviewed by Kath

Thursday, 9 January 2014

I saw this beautiful collection of Dickens Christmas stories
in Waterstones in mid-November, and was desperate to buy it. It’s beautiful,
right? It features Dickens Christmas stories – A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, The Battle of Life, The Cricket on the
Hearth, and The Haunted Man, but
also stories that Dickens wrote for the special seasonal editions of his
periodicals All the Year Round and Household Words and a festive tale from The Pickwick Papers. And although it’s
not Christmas anymore, Dickens is a timeless author that really doesn’t need to
be confined to one time of year.

I haven’t really read much Dickens. I’ve read Oliver Twist, but it was a few years
ago. Does this make me a bad Brit? Oops. But this collection was so beautiful,
and I’ve wanted to read more classic literature that I literally couldn’t let
this pass me by.

The first story featured is from The Pickwick Papers and honestly I found it quite hard to get
through. However, straight after that it went straight into A Christmas Carol, which I really
enjoyed. This was probably in part because I knew the story, but it allowed me
to immerse myself in Dickens writing style and from there I was able to enjoy
the other stories. My favourite of the stories was probably The Haunted Man. It’s much more of a
grisly tale than the much loved A
Christmas Carol. However, it’s a truly moving tale and I absolutely loved
it.

I am so glad I bought this collection of stories. It looks
beautiful on my bookshelf and I’m sure I’m going to bring it out every winter
to read it through.

What a beautiful book. My boyfriend brought me something similar for Christmas, and it was a clothbound version of A Christmas Carol, but it included other stories too. :) I plan on reading a different Dickens christmas tale every Christmas now. :)

I look forward to seeing if the The Haunted Man is in the version I have. :) x